


in the language of trees, rot

by robinsegg



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe- Magnus Archives AU, Canonical Character Death, Everyone is slightly more immoral than in canon, Gothic Elements, Horror Elements, M/M, Plant horror, Possession (a little), a lot of unintentional tension, supernatural entities do not understand bodily autonomy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2020-09-30 21:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinsegg/pseuds/robinsegg
Summary: Curious that so many of these statements come back to Henrietta. So many of us at the Institute seem to have roots there.Case #0161107. Recorded November 7th 2016, by Persephone, head archivist of the Magnus Institute.Field Log #0190109. Recorded January 9th 2019, by Adam Parrish, archival apprentice and agent of the Magnus Institute.Research Log #5. Recorded November 17, 2018 by Gansey, archival assistant in the Magnus Institute.The Magnus Institute archives and investigates supernatural events and phenomena. Two archivists are sent to investigate the hotbed of activity that is Henrietta. The world is on fire.





	1. once more unto the breach

**Author's Note:**

> For the uninitiated, the magnus archives are a horror podcast! All you really need to know is that the magnus institute investigates and records statements about supernatural events, and the archivists play a big role in the classification and understanding (for however much they can be understood) these events. There will be spoilers for parts of the magnus archives as well, but I'm also taking some liberties with it and playing around with certain key features. No need to really understand or know the podcast (it's four very long seasons and counting) but I absolutely recommend it.
> 
> (Essentially, I listened to this podcast about a mean and skeptical archivist having the weight of all of the secret-ish horrors of the world and where they come from thrust upon him, and I was like 'oh god no he's such an Adam I can't not do this')
> 
> Just because I'm unsure how graphic 'graphic violence' is, I haven't used that tag, but there is a description of murder in here, though not especially graphic. I'll put warnings before each chapter, but fair warning that this isn't super light. I don't have too much experience with horror which is why I wouldn't classify this as a horror story but... it's still an au of a horror podcast. So.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Warnings: depictions of murder, physical assault

_Case #0161107  
Statement of Adele Czerny, regarding the death of her brother, Noah. Recorded November 7th 2016, by Persephone, head archivist of the Magnus Institute. _

[Persephone]  
Why don’t you tell me whenever you feel ready?

[Adele]  
I was close with my brother. Well, that isn’t so true. We were pretty close as kids, because when you’re the only children in the house, you make do. But we grew apart, went off to different boarding schools, and I graduated, eventually, while he, um, never did.

I think the best way I can explain Noah is that he was kind of dumb, a big stoner. I mean, he was just a teenager! He smoked weed and ate ridiculous amounts of pizza and had a townie girlfriend, and when I would visit him he’d act like he didn’t know me in front of his friends. He was normal. He didn’t deserve any of what happened to him, you have to believe me here. Noah was a decent kid. It was that awful Barrington Whelk. They were best friends, but I always sort of got the feeling that Noah clung to Whelk, and that Whelk didn’t really… care all that much about him? I’m not sure. I just-- I always had my suspicions about Noah, but I assumed it was the ‘boys-boarding-school’ effect, you know? 

He went to this private school called Aglionby, but as far as I know, they tried to keep what happened to Noah out of their name. All I know is the sons of CEOs went there and it was in the middle of nowhere-- a town called Henrietta. It probably had at most 300 people.

I’d also prefer you guys to keep my name out of this. Aglionby has a lot of power, a lot more than my family has, and I’m sure they wouldn’t be happy with what they would perceive as a smear campaign.

Anyway, whenever I called, he always had some news about that insane search he was on with Whelk, something about a lost king, Glendor, I think? At the time, I just passed it off as regular teenager stuff. I mean, they were in the middle of rural Virginia, there wasn’t much else to do. When I was at boarding school I did some really weird stuff. Bryn Mawr, too, now that I think about it. But it was… weird. Weirder than Noah usually was. There were a few months where it was all he talked about, him or Whelk and nothing else. I didn’t even know his girlfriend’s name, but I knew everything about _Whelk_. I had felt odd about the whole thing-- Noah wasn’t telling our parents anything, and it never felt like he was telling me the whole story, either. There were always parts that didn’t make sense, that just… didn't add up with what I knew about Noah. I couldn’t believe he’d be so obsessed with this boy or this king. The whole thing wasn’t even real! There is no such thing as a sleeping king! And if there was, why would it be in Virginia?

I- I’m sorry. That got away from me. I don’t think I’ve, uh, fully processed a lot of this yet.

Right. The beginning of the end started, I think, when Whelk’s family lost everything. Insider trading, I think. They weren’t really important, just some Wall Street yuppies like everyone else at Aglionby, but, still. I never talked to Whelk personally, except for the - very few times I visited Noah. And I didn’t like the look of him at all. Whelk didn’t look like a stereotypical bad guy- he looked like he summered at Martha’s Vineyard, but he just… seemed like an asshole.

I guess I was right, because after they lost everything, Noah stopped answering my calls and he never talked to our parents. When I did talk to him, it was only ever about that king. I think he even broke up with his girlfriend. I’m never going to be sure if Whelk had pressured him into this whole king thing, or if Noah really felt that passionate about it, but all I know is that Noah had told me the person who woke the king would be granted a favor. I guess-- maybe-- they were looking for that favor. I don’t know. I don’t like to pretend I knew what Noah ever thought. He was always so weird about it, you know? You couldn’t imagine him being dead, because he was always so full of, well, life. I don’t know. I’m sorry.

It was, um, a few months after Whelk’s family lost everything when Noah called. He was kind of frantic, really upbeat and energetic, and he was saying something about how close they were to finding him. I was scared, I mean, Noah actually sounded serious, and so I started saying something about growing up and being mature-- I’m not proud of what I said, but I was worried and tired and it was a long day. Noah got… really weird, then. He got all cold and said that Whelk was right about me. Then he hung up. And a few days later, Aglionby told my parents that Noah had gone missing, and to file a missing persons report.

I’m not saying Whelk killed my brother, but I never liked him, and he never liked me, and he just seemed to like my brother for the attention. And I read something in one of Whelk’s journals once- he snatched it from me when he saw me- about there needing to be a sacrifice. If someone was desperate enough, I guess. I just-- it was so weird. Because I got, I got a call two days later. And it was Noah. It was my baby brother, and he was crying and telling me how sorry he was-- and I asked him where he was but he just kept saying sorry, and how cold he was, and how much he missed me. And then the line went dead. And that was that.

There was this one time, though. I keep telling myself it must have been a hallucination but I know what I saw. I’m- out with friends. We went hiking, maybe. It’s this big forest around where my friend was living. There were parts where the trees were so tall and close together that all the light was blocked out. And there were only a few of us, but I remember breaking away from the group, which was stupid, I guess, but I wanted to go down this path and I only thought I’d be a few minutes. So I just- slipped away. It didn’t feel like I was going slowly, or that it was a long path or anything, but it felt endless. Felt longer than the forest could be. The trees clustered together more the further I went, the path got thinner, and the way got darker. I didn’t really think much of it because it happened so slowly, but there was a point where I stopped to take a breath, and I realized I couldn’t hear-- anything. Not my friends, no birds, not even the trees rustling.

I looked behind me and it was just the path, stretching off into the ether. Nothing but trees on either side, and there didn’t look like a way out. And I thought that I should go back, right? Because I just took the path straight so it has to take me back? But I didn’t because-- I heard something. Screaming. And this is where I just wrote it off as paranoia or panic or a hallucination. 

I follow the sound, right. It’s so jarring, I’d gotten so used to the silence. It felt like it could knock down a tree. And I end up in this clearing. It’s a small one. There’s a little light getting in and I can barely make out this kid, like, writhing on the ground. His head is bashed in on one end and there’s blood gushing down his face. He’s screaming, it’s so loud, I had no idea how no one else heard.

But I was alone.

I can’t move, I’m just standing on the edge of this clearing watching some kid die in front of me. And it looks like he’s struggling, I mean he’s clawing at nothing and trying to squirm away but there’s no one there.

Eventually, he quiets down. He- uh- he stops moving. And I went to him, it felt like I could finally move again-- and. There he is. My baby brother. Murdered.

I think it’s the end of it, you know? I find his body, I can take it back, I don’t get closure but I know he didn’t just disappear.

But he opens his eyes. He starts screaming again. Starts clawing at- at me, now, and it doesn’t even look like he’s alive, but how could he? I just saw him die. He hurt me, I mean, he really hurt me. Dug his nails into my skin-- I have scars on my arms to show for it. I really, I really thought I was going to die. I don’t know how I didn’t. Because Noah wasn’t Noah. He wasn’t good or alive. His eyes didn’t have anything, he was so bloody, and so strong. I was so sure he wouldn’t stop until I was dead too, and I was-- squirming in the same way I saw him squirm. He got stronger the longer we fought, I think, but he didn’t get any more human.

I was so weak. There was just this-- moment, where he was saying something, I think, I couldn’t hear it, but he wasn’t paying so much attention to me. And there was this rock. God. I know it wasn’t really Noah, I’m still trying to convince myself it didn’t really happen, but-- I killed my brother, I think. Bashed his head in on the other side. And then I crawled out of the clearing, and I was back in the forest, and I passed out. I would’ve died if some hiker hadn’t found me in the morning.

I killed my brother. Jesus.

That’s- that’s it. I guess.

_Statement ends.  
Supplementary recording begins._

[Persephone]  
Miss Czerny has declined a follow-up statement. She told us nothing new had occurred except that Noah Czerny was officially declared dead. She has also recently moved cross-country. It remains doubtful if she could give us a statement on short notice. I suppose she’s done with this chapter of her life.

Henry did a little digging and found that there was a missing persons report put in for Adele. There was also a report similar to the one Adele gave to the police, which resulted in a short lived search for her assaulter.

Curious that so many of these statements come back to Henrietta. So many of us at the Institute seem to have roots there. I know that Gansey knows quite a bit about Glendower, the king I assume she was referring to. I know he went to Aglionby-- I wonder if he knew anything about Noah.

_Recording ends._

Adam watched Persephone finish recording as silently as possible. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. There was never any use in trying to hide-- she always knew when he was there anyway. Persephone spun around in her chair, immovable smile on her lips.

“Did you ever hear about Noah Czerny?” Persephone said it carelessly, watching him with those careful eyes of hers. Adam shrugged noncommittally.

“Well, sure,” he said, avoiding her eyes. There was something so obvious about him whenever he talked about Henrietta. Sometimes it came in his accent, the way the words tried to drop consonants. Sometimes it was just in the blush spread across his cheeks and ears, blotchy and furious. It was always vulnerability, as if he was 17 again and his bruises were still obvious on his face. “Henrietta was small, and raven boys were always getting into some trouble or other. One of them going missing fueled the rumor mill for weeks.” Persephone frowned and nodded.

“You realize what I’m going to ask you?”

Adam looked at her for a moment. She held his gaze, revealing nothing but placidity. “Yes. Gansey, too?” Persephone chose not to answer. Instead, she leant back in her chair. They stared at each other, Adam straightening up and Persephone slouching comfortably.

“Would he be useful?” She said, eventually.

“He knows more about Glendower than me. And he has connections.” Adam tried not to sound petulant about it.

“Then you’ve found your answer, yes? I’m not going to be the one making decisions for you over there.” She paused. “Find the tapes with Henrietta in them. Glendower, too. Oh, and there’s pie out in the staff room. Take a slice for yourself first.” She peered at him, smiling softly. “I’ll know if you don’t.”


	2. enter sandman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world to come, as narrated by Gansey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this would be up last week, and I am genuinely sorry for how short this chapter is as well as how late it is but school started up again for me and I underestimated how stressful my senior year would be, haha
> 
> I've started on the next chapter, so hopefully that'll be up soon as well. Thank you all for reading.
> 
> No real warnings for this chapter except mentions of violence.

_Case #0130524_

_Statement of Cialina Buck, regarding a series of strange experiences at her place of employment. Recorded May 24th 2013, by Persephone, head archivist of the Magnus Institute._

[Persephone]  
Statement begins.

Go ahead.

[Cialina]  
So, uh, I work at a pizza parlor. Nino’s. Nino’s isn’t really the issue, though. It’s the patrons. God, do you ever feel like an absolute stereotype? ‘Oh, I live in a town out of every small town horror film and everyone in the town is really weird and I feel like I’ll die if I turn my back on people.’ Like, get a life, loser. But it’s true.

Waitressing already sucks because you get paid in table scraps and everyone treats you like you’re inhuman and then there are the private school boys that think they can just- ugh. Sorry. Off-topic.

So I first noticed this stuff when I was 10-ish? Dunno if he was just insane or he was indulging this old lady or taking advantage of her or what, but I remember this guy, dressed like a traveling salesman but he barely left Henrietta, he would like, conduct sermons right next to the church but never went to church. So he hung out with this old lady, Iris, maybe. Claimed that she could talk to angels and that she was blessed, and the guy just worshipped her. His sermons were all about her, ‘bout how the angels let her bless others. They were just batty in my opinion. But yeah, that was the first time I realized, oh my god, I live in like, Derry, or something.

Angels aside, though—

“Parrish!” Adam startled from where he was dutifully taking notes. Gansey smiled at him from where he leant against the open doorway. “I hear that we’re going to Henrietta?” It was a question, and Adam supposed Gansey meant to make it sound like a question, but really it sounded like a polite demand. Adam hated that, a little. 

“Yeah, Gansey. I actually need you to do some work for me around that. Persephone wants me to go over all the Henrietta and Glendower files on tape. I’m looking through the Henrietta files right now, but if you could find the Glendower ones, that’d be great.” Gansey beamed. Adam grimaced. 

“Of course, yes, yes. I’ve actually been looking up Glendower in my own time, I mean, his whole family is just fascinating. He seemed like a great king, you know. Honorable, kind, logical. Even his enemies couldn’t find much fault with him besides the-- revolutionary tendencies.” Adam rested his chin on his hand, watching Gansey ramble. He didn’t like to admit that he found it sort of fascinating, how much knowledge Gansey soaked up, and how he liked this stuff for the joy of learning it, not for any ulterior motive. It made him feel a little dirty, the way he grabbed at knowledge and twisted it into some rusty sword for his own conquests. It was the way he’d survived, and more than anything, he hated that he’d needed to survive like that.

Gansey seemed to turn in circles when he talked about Glendower. He’d skip over parts of the story and come back to it later, would walk well-trodden ground without noticing, spit out random facts that only made sense in retrospect. Adam would have to stop him often, when he’d get that glassy look in his eyes and keep on rambling, sometimes nonsensically. 

He stopped himself this time, sheepish. “Sorry. I was rambling, but he’s just so--.” Adam gazed lazily at him, blinking slowly.

“Fascinating. I know. Why don’t you,” He said, digging through his desk. “Why don’t you set up a file about Glendower for me, Gansey? With all your information on it and cited sources as a,” he smiled, “primer. And then the tapes, too.” Gansey stared at the thing Adam held out.

“You want me to… cite my sources on a tape recorder?” 

“What?” Adam raised an eyebrow, disparaging and baffled all at once. He was proud of that eyebrow raise. It could shame armies into turning back. “No, of course not. This helps organize thoughts. You can write out your dorky academic paper that I will diligently read and then you can come back to this,” he shook the tape recorder, “and make sure you haven’t missed anything. In my experience it helps keep you on track, too.” Really, Adam didn’t know why he pulled out the tape recorder. God only knew what people thought of him already, holed up in the back of the archives, dutiful apprentice to the enigmatic Persephone, snappish at the best of times and downright mean at the worst. He didn’t need to add “the weird guy who gives out tape recorders” to his lengthy reputation. 

“Oh-- thank you. I suppose.” Gansey looked a little baffled and a little flattered. Adam thought it was kind of cute, and felt a little queasy.

Nodding pleasantly, he turned back to his work. “No problem.” But Gansey didn’t leave. Adam could feel him, probably ignorant of the fact that he’d been dismissed as he usually was.

“What’s up,” he said, craning his head back but not deigning to turn his chair around.

“I just-- why are we going on this trip?” Gansey asked, polite and curious.

Adam frowned. He didn’t like that question, because it opened up multiple lines of questioning he didn’t have an answer to, and Adam didn’t like not having an answer to things. “Persephone is sending me to investigate Henrietta, and I think you’d be useful. You read the Czerny statement, right?” Gansey nodded. “That’s all. You went to school there, and I’m Persephone’s apprentice.”

“Yes, but aren’t you curious about Henrietta? The fact that there are enough statements on Henrietta alone for you to spend so much time looking through all of them. Or that so much suspicious activity is constantly happening there. Don’t you think it could be some sort of-- of, hub, or something, for supernatural behavior?”

Adam turned around then, shocked and unsurprised all at once. “Do you actually believe in all this stuff?”

“You _don’t_?” Gansey looked aghast.

“All of these statements are coming from traumatized people clearly rationalizing a horrible event with irrationality, of course I don’t!”

“You work in an institute that specializes in validating those supernatural experiences! You’re the apprentice to the head archivist—“

“I’m _well_ aware, Gansey, thank you for explaining my job position to me.” Adam tried not to glare, but it was hard. “I think I have a healthy amount of skepticism when I read a statement about a woman _killing_ her dead brother.”

“Then why are you even here?” Gansey burst out, and subsequently blushed. Adam, once again, raised an eyebrow. 

“Every cult needs its nonbeliever,” he said, thin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we both have work to do.” Gansey looked more than a little bewildered, but nodded anyway.

*  
_Research Log #5 regarding explorations into the ancient King Glendower, and assorted mythologies he appears in. Recorded November 17, 2018 by Gansey, archival assistant in the Magnus Institute._

[Gansey]  
The statements with Glendower in them mentioned by name are staggering. The amount of statements that fit his M.O are even more.

I can’t seem to find a pattern. Henrietta, sure. But _why_ Henrietta? I know the where, I know, vaguely, the when, but I don’t know why. An ancient Welsh king in rural Virginia must have a reason. There must be something there. I just-- I need to figure out what it is.

I suppose it would be good to start with common patterns of Glendower. 

1\. Puppetry. When mentioned, there are always feelings of being controlled or like your body has been taken over. Less metaphorically, marionettes, puppets, and automatons all have appeared in statements regarding him.

2\. Families are often targeted, and, more specifically, daughters. Young girls, girls living at home, women with strong ties to their family-- all victims.

3\. Imitations of humans. I suppose this also goes with puppetry, but I think it deserves it own category. When I categorize human imitations, I think mannequins, taxidermy, wax people, even. Anything that looks like a human but is a little off. Of course, taxidermy goes more towards animals than humans, but I really mean any living thing with some sort of consciousness. This could mean anything like a person that looks ‘off’ to feeling like you’re just ‘playing a role’ that is human. So feeling fake, unreal, or like you are failing at being a human all goes into this category, I think.

4\. Knights, for some reason. Probably because this goes with his motif of kingliness, but they often mention knights, swords, crowns, Christianity, I even found a statement implicating him with the Crusades, which makes no sense when you consider the time periods both existed in. 

Those are really it for now, but I’m sure there’s more. I’ve listened and read an ungodly amount of statements, but I know there’s more. There has to be more. 

I- I actually have a theory. I don’t believe the Glendower of history is this Glendower. Everything that he stood for- justice, honor, truth, freedom- is absent from these statements. I’ve read about his historic identity and his modern day agenda and they’re so far apart they feel like different people, so why couldn’t they be? These are horrible occurrences. Every statement just gets more brutal and upsetting-- I found a statement where a man said he saw a woman overpowered by a mannequin in a storefront window and have her limbs torn off one by one. It can’t be the real Glendower, can it? And if it is, what changed? Did Glendower get overpowered by some original creature, made to do its bidding-- if so, why an obscure king from Wales? Are there two Glendowers? There’s so much that we don’t know here, it’s awful.

Maybe Henrietta will have answers.

End of recording.

_Statement ends._

Adam sighed, listening to Gansey record the next room over. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Gansey-- or, well, he didn’t. But he worried for him too. There was an obsession that bordered on worship. There was denial of facts and belief in flights of fancy. Adam didn’t think he was cut out for the job, and he didn’t know why Persephone hadn’t cut him loose. Why she hadn’t cut most of the employees loose, he didn't know. It certainly wasn't as if the Institute was ever in need of too many hands around. He didn't know how he was going to survive a trip with no end in sight with him, constantly grabbing onto the back of Gansey's shirt so that he wouldn't end up dead, or worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr @[wellsforboys](https://wellsforboys.tumblr.com) or on twitter @[incaseofhistory](https://twitter.com/incaseofhistory)


	3. the waste land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan Lynch considers god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo folks it's sure been a while haha. Poem at the beginning is from TS Eliot's "Ash Wednesday."
> 
> Content warnings: mentions of hunting, mentions of killing

_At the first turning of the second stair  
I turned and saw below  
The same shape twisted on the banister  
Under the vapour in the fetid air  
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears  
The deceitul face of hope and of despair._

Ronan Lynch was not an active participant in his life. Not according to his family, not according to his God, not according to his other god, probably not even according to his sheep and cows.

Ronan and god were not on speaking terms. He saw him hanging by the trees sometimes, saw him with his father’s face like a mask, saw him in his dreams. His god held him like a baby, cradled in the house made by his father and his god and his capital G-God, who gave us this blessed spread, amen. Ronan and his god were not kind to each other.

His father is dead. His mother is in stasis. His brother is a heretic. His other brother was beholden to his every whim. And Blue Sargent stood glaring in his driveway.

“I beat spiders with broomsticks,” he said, squinting at her small figure.

“Yeah yeah, and I eat gnats like you for breakfast,” she rolled her eyes. “The priestess-”

“You mean your fucking mother?”

“Whatever. She told me that you need to keep an eye on Cabeswater in the next few weeks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Should I let it eat a shit-for-brains tourist or not?” 

Ronan did not have friends. He did not have anyone, not since his father was killed and not since his good-for-nothing fucking brother left to gallivant around in D.C loaning his soul to bankers and politicians and whatever soulless asshole needed it, as if their father hadn’t already sold it to the only god they’d meet in their lifetime. Ronan had Matthew, who wasn’t real, as much as he tried to make him so. (Childhood was a struggle, as he grew up and began learning what his family already knew, what his family patted him on the back for. Childhood was a struggle, as he watched his doe eye baby brother become the same doe eyed teen, teddy bear stuffing in his brain and possibly his organs or lack thereof. Adolescence was cruel, as Declan grew up and grew unfaithful, as Matthew grew older only in physicality, and Ronan found himself stuck in the middle, an unwilling Messiah for the family that twisted his cruelties into miracles. He loved Matthew and he reviled himself for it. He loved Matthew and he reviled his inhumanity, his inability to make his sweet baby brother a real thing.)

And he had his sheep and his cows, who were not people. He did not, in fact, have Blue, who he wouldn’t have wanted, because he didn’t fucking like spiders.

“That’s above my paygrade, demon spawn.” She said, walking backwards.

“Oh, that’s rich,” He barked out a laugh. “Coming from you, that’s just rich. Offspring of a nest of godawful spiders calls me a demon.” 

So he did his work and mucked through cow shit and fed the chickens and did whatever other farm things he did on a daily basis and he ignored the god with his father’s face and then he went inside and prayed to God. God, capital-G God, didn’t show his face to him, and Ronan wasn’t sure if that made him more or less real. Divine beauty was impossible to understand by humans, but wasn’t it the job of God to boil down even the most complex of topics to the simplest idea for his divine creatures? And wouldn’t God formulate his children into his image? And wasn’t The Spiral, with its impossible forms and disregard of physics and yet its reflection of Ronan’s knowledge, doing what was expected of God?

“At least my god makes sense.” Blue put up a hand in sarcastic salute as she trudged away. Ronan tracked her movements until she disappeared at the treeline.

The Barns was nestled in the heart of nature and life. The Barns was a sprawling sort of estate, taking up more room than thought possible, small and yet large, a burnished monument to a life that spanned continents and decades and was cut too short, left to be carried on by his young and terrible and malcontent child. The Barns should not have existed, the Barns should not exist according to the laws of nature and all things holy. Yet the Barns housed the pious Lynch family, or what was left post-murder of Niall and unravelling of all things known to Ronan Lynch, the as-of-yet still Godfearing middle child heir to the estate.

Matthew bounded from room to room, far enough away from Ronan that he became restless and hungry for something else. His very own Adam. “Ronan? Ronan?” His voice was elated, as it always was. It was carefree, as it always was.

Ronan did not hear him, and it was fine, because Matthew was less a person and more an amalgamation of static and joy and ideas of brotherhood that felt nonexistent to Ronan now, white noise in his voice and nothing in his head. House was on, no one was home.

(Miles and miles up and away, Adam clutched the armrest of a plane seat and said something about self-made men and famous authors and scientists and entrepreneurs, and sipped at Ginger Ale, and tried to ignore Gansey’s ever present comments about Glendower.)

His god was named Niall and Joseph and Parsifal and whoever else was in there, whoever else pledged allegiance or worship or unwittingly let themselves be a meal for the beast, for hunger. Ronan would’ve been dead ten times over if not for his god, Ronan would’ve been free and Matthew would’ve been still and Declan would’ve still been a heretic. His god had many faces, it had many souls inside it. Ronan didn’t know what the afterlife was, except for maybe the melding of many souls into one thing, being stolen or taken or accepted into the many armed horror and beauty of his god. He didn’t know if he preferred God’s idea of hell.

He did not love his god. He did not fear his god, because his god needed him like he hated his god. 

Ronan thought that maybe his god came from another land. A holdover of Niall’s youth in Ireland, or his mother’s pre-existence in Niall’s head. Perhaps his parents had created it, the horrifying product of dream and dreamer-- his brother as much as he was one. A monster came in many forms. What did he have to prove that it had been there before him, that it would be there after the Lynch clan was crushed into dust?

He wanted to go home. He wanted to go to a place he already was. He wanted to go back in time. He wanted to go to a place that didn’t exist, that couldn’t exist, that would never exist again and had never existed.

Ronan Lynch sat down to eat dinner, a pleasant meal with his baby brother-slash-mindless creation, and somewhere far away, Adam Parrish sat down at a rest stop picnic table.

Familiarity was a curse. The unknown was dangerous, but it was not stagnation. His old skin was fitting itself on, and all the old aches and pains were coming with it. Contentment had made him grow weak. He put on a tape.

_Case #9971208_

_Statement of Francis Lee, regarding his encounter with a staircase in the woods. Recorded December 8th 1997 by Adam Parrish, archivist in the Magnus Institute._

[Adam]  
Just speak clearly into the microphone.

[Francis]  
You… weren’t what I was expecting.

[Adam]  
Dr. Poldma is currently on a business trip. As her apprentice, I’m filling in. Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.

[Francis]  
Okay, uh. Uh, so I go hunting sometimes. And I went hunting alone this time. It wasn’t for any reason, I told all my usual hunting buddies, they were all just-- busy. So I went to a spot I know pretty well.

I like hunting; I mean I grew up doing it, it was a whole bonding experience with my uncle, and I don’t do it illegally. I have all my licenses, I never go past the limit, and I’m not-- like-- I’m not cruel. I’m just saying all this because I think we get a bad rap ‘cause of Bambi or whatever and I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything _wrong_, I didn’t deserve whatever it was that happened to me. Okay?

Okay. Well. There’s just something about having a gun in your hands, it’s like a power trip. Really heady feeling. So you have to be careful. So I always try to remember how the first time I killed a rabbit, I threw up. And I got over it, ‘course, but it’s why I don’t like taxidermy or whatever. Feels cruel. Don’t need to invite a ghost into my living room, you know.

I was hunting. I was careful. I was so, so careful. Saw a deer, real nice-looking, and I started following it. All slow-like, wanted to get a clearer shot. You know, it was a real beautiful deer. Almost shimmered in the sun, shiny coat and lean and well, it had these eyes. So human. Scared me a little. I think that’s why I followed it so deep inside. I don’t know if it was enchanting or horrifying me, but I knew I didn’t want it around me. Even in thought. Which wasn’t a nice thing to say I think, or wasn’t a nice thing to think I guess. I had uh criteria for my attitude when I do this stuff. Don’t wanna be in a bad mood or try and take it out on others. That’s gonna make you make stupid mistakes and it’s just a bad thing to do you know, you don’t kill just because you’re in a bad mood.

Maybe that’s why everything happened. Stupid mistakes.

So I kept going on in. Following that deer. I loved that forest, it was so… pleasant. Reminds me a lot of where I grew up. And then I got to this clearing.

Not really a clearing actually, not really an anything except for the staircase. I’d read all those stories about random stairs in the woods and I thought they were funny, sure. But seeing them in real-life was just kind of. Unsettling. Looked wrong, felt wrong. I wanted to smash them to pieces. But the deer was standing right on the first step, so I just-- killed it. Clean shot, good kill, and yet. I felt so bad. I always feel a little bad when I hunt, but I get over it usually. But god.

That deer looked at me when I killed it, alright? I put my gun up and that deer looked back. Those bulging eyes were so weird, they were so big and it was like they saw me, saw me in a way I didn’t like. Just a fucking, crime against nature. It made me stare into its eyes as I shot it. Didn’t even have the decency to close them. It knew I killed it, it knew I was going to kill it. Forget fucking Bambi. That made me never want to hunt again.

When I went over to it its eyes were still open. It was a dead thing and I felt those eyes. I hated those fucking eyes. I wanted to gouge them out. I wanted to shoot them. I didn’t want those eyes ever looking at me again. But I didn’t do anything like that because I remembered the rabbit, okay? I wouldn’t do something like that.

And then I looked up. And there the deer was. Top of the staircase. Gunshot wound and all. And the deer was still down there, where I was. There was just. Two of them now. Two identical copies.

I wasn’t as nice that time. When I killed it. Shot it in the eye first and then the stomach. Dropped like a pile of bricks. Fear makes you forget, makes you a little crueler. I’m not proud but it was- it wasn’t natural.

Then I felt something at my back. A warm hand pushing me up the stairs. It was kind of sticky. I remember it sticking to my shirt a little. A deer at the bottom and a deer at the top and then me, in the middle. I didn’t try to look. I was just. I was so, so scared. It was like the whole world was sideways and nothing was right and I don’t like when nothing is right, I like when things make sense. We all- we all like when things make sense. It’s a normal thing, to, to push out the weirdness from your head and make the bad seem okay.

We get to the halfway point of the stairs like that. And then I turned around and it was- it was me.

Crazy. But true. It was me but all wrong, like someone had, rearranged my face and all the parts were still there but twisted, I guess. My face looked kind of stretched out. My eyes were wider apart. And my mouth took up-- so much of my face. And there was a gunshot wound in-- him?-- it.

I-- I’m sorry, could I have a glass of water?

[Adam]  
Oh! Oh, sure. Just a second.

[Francis]  
Thank you.

Uh, the gunshot wound. There was a gun in its hand, same as mine, all the same scratches and everything. I didn’t shoot it or anything, I _know_ I didn’t shoot it because I would remember something like that I mean it had no emotion on its face or nothing it was just some blank body you know I hated it from the moment I saw it, that, that, that copy of me.

And it held up its gun. So I started running and, this is, somehow, the weirdest part.

I fell through a door. Somehow. It was at my feet I guess, but I was still on the stairs, so I don’t, really, know how that happened. I fell through and ended up somewhere dark. That’s all I can really describe it with. The door was gone from-- wherever it was, I guess, and there was a regular door at the end of the-- I think it was a hall. I went through it and I was back home. Everything right with the world. Sort of.

I’m scared now. Of a lot of things but, mostly of things not where they should be. I don’t go hunting alone anymore. Sometimes I think I see doors but they’re not really there. Maybe they were there and they left? I don’t know. 

[Adam]

Is that the end of your statement?

[Francis]

Oh. Sure.

_Statement ends._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me @[repressionattic](https://repressionattic.tumblr.com) on tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr @[wellsforboys](https://wellsforboys.tumblr.com)
> 
> Next chapter should be up next weekend.


End file.
